I've been TOLD (i don't actually know if it's true) that either all STI shifters, or at least the early ones, are completely unserviceable. However i've also heard that lubricant in 'the right spot' (of course no one ever actually specifies where this mythical right spot is) will get them going again. It's certainly worth having a crack at fixing it, have you seen the price of replacements?! .

Oh and if all else fails i have a set of 600 tricolour shifters i'm never going to use, one of them doesn't work and i have a feeling it's the opposite of your situation so happy yay if so.

When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments- Elizabeth West.

ldrcycles wrote:I've been TOLD (i don't actually know if it's true) that either all STI shifters, or at least the early ones, are completely unserviceable. However i've also heard that lubricant in 'the right spot' (of course no one ever actually specifies where this mythical right spot is) will get them going again. It's certainly worth having a crack at fixing it, have you seen the price of replacements?! .

Oh and if all else fails i have a set of 600 tricolour shifters i'm never going to use, one of them doesn't work and i have a feeling it's the opposite of your situation so happy yay if so.

Thanks for the heads up mate. What a pity that they aren't as serviceable.

Would you mind if I could follow you up on those 600 tricolor shifters? Is it possible you wouldn't mind checking which one was working?

Funny how these things happen ai? You just so happened to have the one I needed hehe

A little update for everyone. I took the shifter off the bars and just ran the shifter without the cable in there, after a few clicks it is working perfectly now. I will run some wd40 through the shifter hole and then put some lithium grease to see if I can flush it through.

Maybe the cable was interfering with the shifter or maybe it was stuck at one point.

The only thing I was going to ask about was that my chain is touching the larger chain ring when using the smaller chain ring (and the smallest cassette gear). The only thing I could notice for this to happen could be that the cartridge doesn't seem to be sitting all the way on the rear wheel. There is about 2-3mm of the guide lines for the cassette gears showing.

I had a sticky right 600 shifter which got progressively worse over a couple of years . I soaked it in petrol for an hour, let it dry and sprayed lithium grease into it. It worked perfectly for another couple of years until I sold them. I might have just been lucky.....

adrian_d wrote:The only thing I was going to ask about was that my chain is touching the larger chain ring when using the smaller chain ring (and the smallest cassette gear). The only thing I could notice for this to happen could be that the cartridge doesn't seem to be sitting all the way on the rear wheel. There is about 2-3mm of the guide lines for the cassette gears showing.

Chain rub on the side of the big ring when in small/small gear is completely normal. Only some later-model cranksets have had the chainring spacing widened to reduce this.

As for the cassette sitting on the freehub, unless you've got a 7-sp. cassette on a 8/9/10-sp. body, or a Mavic hub, which requires a 2mm spacer regardless of what cassette is on it, it will be sitting on properly. In either of those scenarios you'll know it's not right 'cos it will actually be moving on the hub. The machining of the freehub body is such that the troughed splines are cut deeper into the inner flange than the ridged ones (which have a step on the end for the cassette to tighten against), so you will see a little bit of that shaping inboard of the inner gear.

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